August 2008 Archives

Hey, I know I am not supposed to do this... will discourage donors, right? The libraries are always perfect and children are smiling and everyone has a favorite book that they read fifty times. "In your face!" as my son is now fond of saying. It's true for some, but the reality is that developing a reading culture and a widespread support for reading is hard even in very literate societies (our neighboring county of Salinas in the United States almost closed all its public libraries!). So in the spirit of letting blog readers know how things really work, and what we at FAVL spend our time doing, here's a"slightly redacted" version of an email I sent to our Ghanaian partner NGO, CESRUD.

Hi Rex,

Sorry to be so late in sending you back some comments from my visit in July. It was nice to meet you for dinner and I hope the next time we can have more time to chat!

I understand that you are having a librarian meeting tomorrow, so there is one thing that I feel important to mention and that I hope you can engage the librarians, particularly X and Y (Z I do not know enough about, but she seemed very enthusiastic). I have the feeling that over the past several years a number of volunteers have come through the libraries, and done storytimes, art sessions, origami (paper folding) and other activities. But somehow the librarians do not seem to incorporate these activities into their own work. They seem to see them as something that volunteers do, but not the librarian. But the point of the volunteers is to be training the librarians by example, and especially training them by example in "taking initiative". The goal of a librarian, and the measure of their effectiveness, is not whether they can preserve the library exactly as they found it, but rather if they can make it better.

To give you a specific example that disappointed me. Outside one library was a piece of paper with the "rules and regulations" The paper was poorly taped to the wall, very unattractive. Part was typed, part was hand-written. Some of the rules were repeated. It looked like little thought had gone into preparing an attractive sign, or a sign that tried to help the library patron understand the rules. One of the rules was to please reshelve the books. When I asked X about the sign, he said that a volunteer had helped them make a better sign of the rules and regulations and simplified it. And indeed there was a nice-looking sign in the interior of the library. That sign, however, said that when looking at a book the patron *should not* reshelf it. (I it may have been the reverse). The point is the signs contradicted each other, but X seemingly had never bothered to fix this very basic thing.

I mention that because small things like that are a sign that there are bigger problems with motivation and interest. When I asked X what books he enjoyed and liked reading, it seemed like he had not been reading any of the books in the library! A librarian's first duty is to know the books in the collection and be reading himself or herself, so that he or she can help the readers.

I think we (you, myself, and Lucas) need to be more forceful with our management and raise expectations of what the librarian should be doing. In Burkina we have increasingly been letting the librarians know that their salary increases are dependent on performance. We issue warning letters to librarians who are absent when a coordinator or other staff member comes to visit. Librarians are told they must inform the coordinator of late opening, early closure or absence. if the coordinator comes by and the library is closed, a warning letter will be issued. Libraries are not to be opened and managed by a younger brother or a friend.

So I wanted to let you know it is something I was concerned about, and I look forward to continuing to work with you and CESRUD on this matter. Lucas is very important in the role of overseeing the librarian work. He needs to set good expectations and example for the librarians. I feel it is important to have an open discussion- our work at the libraries is about improving things and making sure everyone feels like they are part of the team.

I think we have a good relationship, so I know you won't interpret this as criticism but rather as what I see as the area we need to work on to improve. Anything I can do to help, that is what I am here for!

All the best,

Michael

Cribbed from the scholars (the link is gated so no point posting):

Book review of
The road to clarity: Seventh-Day Adventism in Madagascar – By Eva Keller Basingstoke: Palgrave 2005.
by
Michael Lambek London School of Economics and Political Science/University of Toronto
in
Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute Vol 13(3) Pages 774-775 2007

The road to clarity is itself a model of clarity. With lucid writing and direct argument, Keller draws us to a small number of Seventh-Day Adventists in the remote town of Maroantsetra and surrounding villages of northeastern Madagascar. Established in the United States by 1860, Adventism has been only modestly successful in Madagascar (slightly under 1 per cent of the population in the district are members; this is higher than the national average and lower than neighbouring countries) but reasonably effective. In particular, the church's ability to manage the regular circulation of their quarterly Bible Study Guide with its daily lessons printed in Malagasy suggests a remarkable level of organization that is beyond the scope of Keller's study. It is the written publications that account for the success of Adventism in this part of Madagascar. They enjoin people to read and study the Bible, offering daily topics and questions with associated verses from the Old and New Testaments. Keller offers a compelling description of the intellectual pleasure gained from reading, studying, and conversing together. Interpretation is collective and democratic; Keller describes the method as Socratic and makes an interesting comparison with science. It is the process of study rather than any specific results which the Adventists enjoy, as well as the sense of potency that promises them the complete clarity of divine vision in the afterlife.

One could see this as a purely intellectualist account but insofar as one accepts Keller's observation that 'Bible study is not a means to an end, but an exciting and attractive activity in and of itself' (p. 242), so one must also acknowledge (at least from an Aristotelian perspective) the ethical dimension. Indeed, a chief strength of this book is Keller's strong rebuttal of the various utilitarian arguments so frequently made to explain conversion. Keller shows that Adventism is not practised in order to wriggle out of obligations to kin and take the short cut to middle-class life, and she shows the strong and selfless commitments that continue to be made to relatives across the denominational boundary.

Earlier I had posted about Marilyn Deer, a very generous and committed donor who helped establish a library in Jordan Nu, Ghana. The establishment of the library was tough, and then Marilyn realized that the battle had only just begun! Managing and ensuring quality service are even harder. So we have been exploring how to leverage our respective strengths... Marilyn's long-term commitment and incredible energy, and our presence on the ground (though a little far away!). Our library coordinator, Lucas Amikiya, visited Jordan Nu with Marilyn in June. (Along for the ride was Amanda Young, a Watson scholar traveling the world looking at community libraries, but that is another posting.) We're now talking about setting up a more regular system of visiting the library and doing inspection, training and encouragement for a week. It is expensive, but has to be done, we all agree. What is the proper frequency, is the problem. Once a month would be ideal, but costs far to much! These are the issues that a network of "friends of African village libraries" confronts every day. So I was struggling with the tradeoffs, and then got to Marilyn's email where she had sent me photos of the library... here they are- fantastic! A real jewel, and the little we spend on polishing this gem will be well worth it! Bravo Jordan Nu!!!!!

Why search for that and see what you can find? It's more likely to get a hit than "Fairytale novel Nigeria"? (Well, no it isn't really; see tomorrow's post.) It did work: the first link led me to a nice review of a novel and writer I had not previously heard of, at Qantara.de, an interesting website in its own right.

Abdulrazak Gurnah – "Pilgrim's Way"

As Foreign as a Drop of Oil in Water

In his novel Pilgrim's Way, Abdulrazak Gurnah, two-time Booker Prize nominee and native of Zanzibar, writes about migrants and their foreignness. The book is an angry postcolonial "coming to terms" with society. Review by Jan Valk
Abdulrazak Gurnah
There are different forms of foreignness. There is the foreignness of the newcomer – of one who has yet to familiarize himself with a new environment. And then there is the foreignness of a drop of oil in a pail of water. This is more than a temporary state. It is the true existential form of foreignness: something insoluble.

Le lendemain matin je me suis rendu à Sara avec Leslie. A 8 heures nous étions à Sara. A notre arrivée, l’animation avait déjà commencée. L’animateur principal de Sara qui est Ismaila, Dounko, Lucie et l’assistant du camp étaient avec les enfants sous le hangar de la bibliothèque, chantaient, tapaient les mains et dansaient à tour de rôle. L’ambiance était vraiment bon- enfant ! Apres cette animation, ce fut les jeux de ludo et de carte en groupe. Pendant que les enfants jouaient, je m’entretenais avec Dounko et Ismaila. Ceux-ci m’ont fait savoir que la première semaine du camp était décevant du fait du niveau très bas des élèves ; pendant les séances de lecture, lorsque un enfant lisait par exemple un paragraphe, à chaque mot, l’enfant marquait un point ; la lecture était donc totalement entrecoupée. Mais après une semaine, les animateurs leur ont appris à lire et c’est ce que nous avons constate au cour de l’activité qui a suivit les jeux, c'est-à-dire la lecture. Ismaila et Dounko interrogeaient les enfants à lire à tour de rôle. Lorsque un enfant finissait de lire et que les animateurs constataient qu’il à fait du progrès dans la lecture comparativement aux jours précédents, tout le monde l’applaudissait. Apres la lecture ce fut le coloriage des masques confectionnés la veille, puis les dessins libre. Les enfants sont de bons dessinateurs (confer images en photos et vidéo). Apres la pause, ce fut les discussions en deux groupes ; le premier groupe dirige par Dounko discutait de la vie chez le tuteur, et celui du groupe dirigé par Ismaila discutait sur l’importance de la lecture. Les enfants répondaient aux questions des animateurs et écoutaient attentivement les conseils de ceux-ci après les discussions. Apres toutes ces activités, les enfants se sont régalés en mangeant un bon plat de riz à la sauce d’arachide et au poisson fume. Apres le déjeuner sous le hangar, ils ont rejoints la bibliothèque ou les animateurs leur ont donnes des livres a lire a la maison ; ceci pour favoriser leur apprentissage a la lecture.

On the sushi, see Tyler Cowen in Marginal Revolution, read towards the bottom of the entry.

Reading is like a field... you cultivate it and the reading grows. Gosh that simile didn't work at all. Any suggestions?

Here's indomitable Meghan Coughlin's latest blog entry...

In the month of July, we enrolled 30 new library members (18 students and 22 adults), had 139 books borrowed, and 753 library visits, more than 20 a day. That’s also more than two times the number of visits we had in June, and as I have said before all of these numbers will only go up with the end of vacation and the rainy season.

If you are looking for a novel set in Africa that is actually closer to a true story, then I definitely recommend Eggers book published last year. I am going to lead several discussions about the current political situation in Sudan for some San Mateo County libraries (under the San Mateo County Reads program) and am looking forward to sharing impressions about the book. My first impression, which I had before I even read What is the What, was that Cormac McCarthy's The Road was actually a sly way to make people think about the experiences of the Sudanese and Rwandans... however horrific the slog was in The Road (grim I thought as I unbearably kept reading it) the real-life slog of people out of the atrocious violence in Sudan and Rwanda was every bit its equal. And unlike The Road's glimmer of a happy ending, for most people in Kakuma, Congo, and elsewhere the was no happy ending and they continue to live grim lives. So if that doesn't get you interested in reading the book what will?

A nice short video featuring a couple poems set during the Biafra civil war. Abani has a new novel called Song for Night.

Arriving in Sara to see the reading camps, the first thing I noticed was children jumping and singing, not reading. It dawned on me that this experience for the kids was much more than academic, it was social and fun, just like summer camp in the United States. The children were singing, doing art projects, theater, calisthenics, and spending a lot of time reading and discussing books. They got two nutritious meals a day, and a t-shirt, which is a big thing in Burkina Faso. The levels of ability to read were quite different, but I was told that many of the children had progressed quite significantly from the first day of camp. At the end of each day, children would take home a book that they would then read at night.

What an incredible opportunity this has been for village children. Certainly this is the only camp that they will ever attend. In Bereba after the camp ended, many of the children were very sad. The camps have been so popular that parents have approached the librarians and said that they want more of them and would pay for them. Several of the camp teachers noticed changes in the kids. First, their reading improved. Second, they became much more vocal in giving opinions and third, they became very attached to the libraries. In fact, the children frequent the library much more than they did before. Overall, these have been an enormous success. We have to try to do this again next year!

On the plane back from Burkina read Appointment in Samarra, published in 1934, by John O'Hara. Interesting technique employed, of not ever quite knowing what the novel is about, and then even at the end not really sure. There are multiple plots, and different characters take center stage at different points. You think the novel is about one person, and then that person never appears again. The sociological commentary on the well-to-do just as the Depression hits is very interesting.

Long-term effects of literary education on book-reading frequency: An analysis of Dutch student cohorts 1975–1998
Marc Verboord
Department for the Study of the Arts and Culture, Erasmus University, The Netherlands

Poetics
Volume 33, Issues 5-6, October-December 2005, Pages 320-342

Abstract
We investigated the influence of literary education models on the book-reading frequency of students later in life, and how this influence can be explained. In total, 85 mother-tongue teachers in secondary education in the Netherlands were retrospectively questioned about their literary instruction in a random year between 1975 and 1998. Almost 700 former students of these teachers, spread over examination years and levels, were tracked down and interviewed about their current reading frequency. Multilevel analyses showed that the more student-centered the model of literary education is, the higher the later book-reading frequency. As the model gets more teacher-centered, the less students tend to read as adults. These effects do not vary over various student cohorts. Neither do changes in literary education over time explain differences in book-reading frequency between cohorts. Implications of these results are discussed.

Kate writes, apparently from the bus terminal in Dodoma on her way to visit Chalula library in Tanzania:

Dear Friends,

It’s been a busy summer (dry season in Uganda), and I have only been able to get to Kitengesa three times. But they were three wonderful weekends. On the first, the library was holding a Children’s Day. Cheldren from Lwannunda Primary School—the school next door to our own house—were there, playing games and reading books, and at the end Lucy, the librarian in charge, asked me to read them a story. It’s a lovely story, How Hare Stole Ghost’s Drum by Julius Ocwinyo. Julius is a friend of mine, and he told me that he learned the story while in primary school in Northern Uganda, in his own language, Lango. And here was I reading this story, in English, to Luganda-speakig children! It’s a great instance of the kind of interlingual activity the library makes possible.

My most recent visit, on 19-20 July, was extra special because we were playing host that weekend to a mobile computer center! This center is a project of the Maendeleo foundation (www.maendeleo.org or www.progressafrica.org), which is directed by my friend Eric Morrow. It consists of a van, equipped with solar panels on the roof, a tent, and five cmputers. Eric set up the show outside the library and on the first day the Lwannunda Primary School children came to learn how to use the computers; the second day was devoted to adult members of the library. On the Saturday, Dan set a DVD going on one of our laptops inside the library to keep the children entertained while they were waiting; and later I got to read them another story. Altogether, Eric and his team served close to 100 people that weekend—and since it was the first time he had taken his mobile computer center out, it was quite a triumph.

The middle visit was devoted to a meeting of the Kitengesa Community Library Board (of which I am the secretary). Our main task at present is putting up our own computer center. A student volunteer organization based on the University of British Columbia raised CAN$10,000 towards this project, and we raised another $10,000 ourselves last year. Now the walls are up and work is to begin on the roof next week. The whole building is to consist of a book room, the same size as our present library, a slightly smaller computer room (to house 9-10 computers), and a community hall. The idea is to rent the latter out so as to generate an income for the library.

We need more money, though. We had to start the project early this year so as to secure the Canadian grant, and I thought what I’d raised would be enough to finish the building. But prices, especially of cement, have gone up tremendously, and what we have will only complete the roof. I’m trying to get another grant, and the Maendeleo Foundation will help with the computers, but any additional contribution will be warmly welcome, if only to cover our running costs (the latter are about $3000 a year, while as much as $10,000 more may be needed for the building project).

Meanwhile, I’ve been spending a lot of time working for the Uganda Community Libraries Association. We formed this association last year because we realized that thee are many other libraries in Uganda founded, like Kitengesa, on local initiatives and serving mainly rural populations. We have held two workshops for the association, and it is wonderful to see how excited the people working in these libraries are about meeting others in the same business—and, as we hoped it would, Kitengesa is proving an example and inspiration for all. So thanks to all of you, our donors, for making this all possible!

Kate Parry is just returning from Uganda, and she sends along a snapshot of the Kitengesa library scholars. These are secondary school students who receive a small stipend that is used to pay their school fees, and in return they spend time in the library helping out where needed. A nice way to reward the "avid readers" who will someday turn into "literary giants"!

FAVL Treasurer Deb Garvey pointed me to a short story in the June 23 New Yorker, which we missed while we were abroad, by Chimananda Ngozi Adichie. The story is called "The Headstrong Historian" and employs an interesting technique of going slow through the rhythms of pre-colonial village life and then suddenly accelerating through seventy-five years of colonial and independence life. I get the feeling from the story that there is a deeper structure, and that more than likely she is riffing off Chinua Achebe, but I'm an economist not a literary scholar, so I'll leave it to someone else to map the arcana and enlighten her readers.

I've just stumbled across the book-lovers sharing site called LibraryThing, and one of their groups is Africa related. As good a place as any to meet people interested in African literature and Africa-related books.

When I think about what my ideal conversation would be like with a library reader in one of the African Village libraries that FAVL supports, below is what I have in mind. If you are in Africa and are friends with a super-reader like florality, or are one yourself, make a little video and send me the link!